Silence-class Missile Frigate
The Silence-class Missile Frigate, while more expensive when compared to Hoersch-Kessel Drive's economical HKD Missile Frigate, is versatile and can function as a regular warship. The Silence-class has both an unusually large number of engines and an unusually high amount of maneuvering jets for a vehicle of its size; its light build helps it further in performance. The vessel lacks energy weapons, and thus can get away with a small reactor, which in turn leaves it with ample ammunition room for its weapons. The wings have external docking points for a squadron of fighters; the ship also contains 200 troops and three landing barges making it a good-all-around light warship. =Appearance= It has a cylindrical hull (with the bases of the cylinder at the front and back) that doubles in radius to accommodate a large array of engines. It also increases even more in height than it does in width, giving it an elliptical cross-section at that point. At the very top and bottom, it widens a good bit. On the top and bottom of this are two turrets (one pair on top, one pair on bottom), side by side. The turrets are ball-shaped, for optimal fire range, and fairly large: the two turrets side by side with the spaces between and next to them nicely fill the width alloted to them (the top and bottom of the engine array is squared off to be flat). The ship has four forward-curving wings, rooted on the engines. From the front, the configuration looks like that of an X-wing, but with the roots of the wings slightly closer together vertically (from the front) relative to the total height of the craft; also, the vertical tilt of wings is slightly less extreme than the X-wing. The wingtips are still closer to the craft's horizontal centerline than the turrets, which can therefore shoot over them. =Armament= The turrets on the main body each house a concussion missile battery, and although this gives the ship two less batteries of launchers than the HKD Missile Frigate, their turrets provide better targeting capability. The side-by-side configuration of the turrets allows all four to fire forward easily; in fact, the only time targeting is an issue is when an enemy is beside the ship, where the turret on the far side would have to shoot through the one on the near side. This is easily solved by the ship's captain putting the ship into a bank. On each wing, there is a large box containing an assault concussion missile launcher. An early version of the Silence sported arrays of turbocharged laser cannons and some quad laser turrets; however, this version was less versatile, plagued by power and ammunition issues, and highly unstable. These problems caused it to be removed from production. As a result, the most common version of the Silence-class is actually the Mark II model. A Mark III version has also been produced, which has added shielding, and the presence of two more concussion missile batteries. Category:Capital ShipsCategory:FrigatesCategory:Muir_Corporation_ShipsCategory:Mirrodin